Healing Through Travel
I’ve never been a fan of the phrase
Life begins outside of your comfort zone
Instead, I choose to believe that
Healing begins outside your comfort zone.
Someone once described my style as “comfy cute”. From my clothing style to my lifestyle, this is an accurate description. I am 100% dedicated to living a comfortable life. From an easy start to the day, to clothes that make me feel warm and cozy, I live for comfort. Comfort is luxurious. Hence, why I don’t love the first quote.. Because life, indeed, does happen, quite beautifully, inside of our comfort zone. We have fun with familiar friends in this zone. We become regulars at the local coffee shop or gym in this zone. We form a community in this zone. A great life exists vivaciously in this comfort zone.
But healing doesn’t occur in our comfort zone.
Healing involves excavating the deepest parts of ourselves. It calls upon us to revolutionize our thinking and change our perspective. We can only achieve this outside of our comfort zone. To evolve, we have to get uncomfortable, really uncomfortable. Uncomfortably uncomfortable.
The road to healing begins by journeying within ourselves. The truth is, healing doesn’t have to take place in a holy land under the guidance of a shaman or Buddhist monk. We are quite capable of getting uncomfortable in our homes. But for me, I couldn’t journey within until I ventured out into the world. I had to remove myself from the comforts of home because their temptations were too great. It was too easy for me to keep doing things I had always done them because their familiarity and predictable outcomes created a sense of safety, albeit a false one.
Minca, Colombia
So I decided to venture out into the world to spread my wings, to prove to myself that I could respond to its unpredictability.
Through traveling…
I learned self-reliance. I can navigate city streets, public transportation, and rural roads to get to a destination I have seen on a map. I can make itineraries based on knowledge acquired in the planning process.
I learned to receive. In a world that applauds martyrdom, I now know that receiving from another person is, many times, a gift in itself.
I learned to be autonomous. In a foreign country, I am removed from my normal life, which is heavily influenced by what society/family/friends tell me I should be doing, feeling, or wanting. I discovered what I actually want to be doing, feeling, and wanting.
I learned the power of feelings and emotions. The unique experiences the great Universe has bestowed upon me has awakened me to passionate, intense feelings. This ultimately led me to change my life to relentlessly pursue this emotional state of being.
I reinstated a sense of self that I can be proud of. I consider my trips to be my children, a grand creation I conjure from my resources. I have become a ”resourceress.”
I learned that I am human and that making mistakes is normal. I have given up my rules of perfection and now embrace my hiccups.
I learned the first steps toward vulnerability. I now make deep connections with strangers that allow me to show raw aspects of myself that I typically wouldn't share.
I learned how to achieve communion with Source in the remoteness of nature.
I learned to care less about my body image. The world doesn’t care what I look like, just that I show up as I am.
I learned two core values:
Don’t let life get too safe.
Keep the world big.
The more I align with these values and apply these lessons to my life, the more I thrive and live a life that I love.
